Re: [pacman-dev] [arch-general] rotate pacman log?
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Dale Blount <dale@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:42 -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:38 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose@darose.net> wrote:
I noticed that the pacman log doesn't get rotated. Seems like it should, as it could get rather big over time. Any particular reason why the package doesn't provide a /etc/logrotate.d/ script by default?
I don't see a problem with that. Probably a good idea too. If you want to provide a file for pacman, I'm sure Dan would be happy to include it in the arch package.
My only request here is that it saves at least a years worth of updates by default. If something breaks on my system and I don't notice it for a few months, I can't tell if an update broke it or not.
I have a 828Kb pacman.log from a 5 year old install. Granted I don't -Syu as often as I should, but it still seems manageable at many times that on modern hardware.
I'm actually with Dale here. I find it nice to go all the way back to the "beginning of time" with my install so I can see exactly what may have pulled in a now unneeded dep, etc. I just used this on my Eee yesterday to remove unnecessary packages originally pulled in by OpenOffice (hsqldb). I would rather old logs never get deleted; but even more I would rather the file never get touched.
There is a separate concern I have wanted to address for a while, and that is the mixing of what was previously a pristine pacman.log with the scriptlet messages. It is a great idea, but in practice, it makes this file not near as concise as it once was. In an ideal world: 1) pacman.log would return to only being upgrade/install/remove messages. 2) another log file would be added that contained the verbose stuff. pacman_messages.log or something. 3) pacman.log never rotates/deletes. 4) pacman_messages.log rotates/deletes.
What do people think of this?
While we're proposing ideas.... what about this: * new scriptlet function "message()", that just outputs text. * add a -Q operation to call the message() function. Then there's really no need for scriptlet logging at all.
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Dale Blount <dale@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:42 -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:38 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose@darose.net> wrote:
I noticed that the pacman log doesn't get rotated. Seems like it should, as it could get rather big over time. Any particular reason why the package doesn't provide a /etc/logrotate.d/ script by default?
I don't see a problem with that. Probably a good idea too. If you want to provide a file for pacman, I'm sure Dan would be happy to include it in the arch package.
My only request here is that it saves at least a years worth of updates by default. If something breaks on my system and I don't notice it for a few months, I can't tell if an update broke it or not.
I have a 828Kb pacman.log from a 5 year old install. Granted I don't -Syu as often as I should, but it still seems manageable at many times that on modern hardware.
I'm actually with Dale here. I find it nice to go all the way back to the "beginning of time" with my install so I can see exactly what may have pulled in a now unneeded dep, etc. I just used this on my Eee yesterday to remove unnecessary packages originally pulled in by OpenOffice (hsqldb). I would rather old logs never get deleted; but even more I would rather the file never get touched.
There is a separate concern I have wanted to address for a while, and that is the mixing of what was previously a pristine pacman.log with the scriptlet messages. It is a great idea, but in practice, it makes this file not near as concise as it once was. In an ideal world: 1) pacman.log would return to only being upgrade/install/remove messages. 2) another log file would be added that contained the verbose stuff. pacman_messages.log or something. 3) pacman.log never rotates/deletes. 4) pacman_messages.log rotates/deletes.
What do people think of this?
While we're proposing ideas.... what about this: * new scriptlet function "message()", that just outputs text. * add a -Q operation to call the message() function.
Then there's really no need for scriptlet logging at all.
If I upgrade 59 packages and 3 of them spit out messages but I closed my console, what do I do? -Dan
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Dale Blount <dale@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:42 -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:38 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose@darose.net> wrote:
I noticed that the pacman log doesn't get rotated. Seems like it should, as it could get rather big over time. Any particular reason why the package doesn't provide a /etc/logrotate.d/ script by default?
I don't see a problem with that. Probably a good idea too. If you want to provide a file for pacman, I'm sure Dan would be happy to include it in the arch package.
My only request here is that it saves at least a years worth of updates by default. If something breaks on my system and I don't notice it for a few months, I can't tell if an update broke it or not.
I have a 828Kb pacman.log from a 5 year old install. Granted I don't -Syu as often as I should, but it still seems manageable at many times that on modern hardware.
I'm actually with Dale here. I find it nice to go all the way back to the "beginning of time" with my install so I can see exactly what may have pulled in a now unneeded dep, etc. I just used this on my Eee yesterday to remove unnecessary packages originally pulled in by OpenOffice (hsqldb). I would rather old logs never get deleted; but even more I would rather the file never get touched.
There is a separate concern I have wanted to address for a while, and that is the mixing of what was previously a pristine pacman.log with the scriptlet messages. It is a great idea, but in practice, it makes this file not near as concise as it once was. In an ideal world: 1) pacman.log would return to only being upgrade/install/remove messages. 2) another log file would be added that contained the verbose stuff. pacman_messages.log or something. 3) pacman.log never rotates/deletes. 4) pacman_messages.log rotates/deletes.
What do people think of this?
While we're proposing ideas.... what about this: * new scriptlet function "message()", that just outputs text. * add a -Q operation to call the message() function.
Then there's really no need for scriptlet logging at all.
If I upgrade 59 packages and 3 of them spit out messages but I closed my console, what do I do?
Honesty: Don't close the console after an upgrade, you knob. Realism: Ok, so there is a case for logging, sure, but the message function is kinda neat
Aaron Griffin wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
While we're proposing ideas.... what about this: * new scriptlet function "message()", that just outputs text. * add a -Q operation to call the message() function.
Then there's really no need for scriptlet logging at all.
If I upgrade 59 packages and 3 of them spit out messages but I closed my console, what do I do?
Honesty: Don't close the console after an upgrade, you knob. Realism: Ok, so there is a case for logging, sure, but the message function is kinda neat
So here is an idea for pacman contrib that I have had floating around for a while. A script for doing things with the pacman log such as 1) Listing packages installed - good for people the ruin their pacman db which for some unknown reason happens reasonably often and there are scripts on the forums to do this 2) Strips old entries in the log down to essentials. i.e. Just keep the last n days of entries and the latest information on installed packages Allan
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
There is a separate concern I have wanted to address for a while, and that is the mixing of what was previously a pristine pacman.log with the scriptlet messages. It is a great idea, but in practice, it makes this file not near as concise as it once was. In an ideal world: 1) pacman.log would return to only being upgrade/install/remove messages. 2) another log file would be added that contained the verbose stuff. pacman_messages.log or something. 3) pacman.log never rotates/deletes. 4) pacman_messages.log rotates/deletes.
What do people think of this?
Hmm, first I didn't see any drawbacks by splitting logs, but I just thought of one now. Putting all verbose messages separately in pacman_messages.log put them out of context. With the current all-in-one log file, you can associate very easily and quickly any verbose messages / scriptlets output with the corresponding upgrade/install/remove.
participants (4)
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Aaron Griffin
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Allan McRae
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Dan McGee
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Xavier